College of Veterinary Medicine

 

Honors and Awards:

2004 Invited speaker at the 3rd International symposium: Cough Acute and Chronic in London, UK, presented “Central pharmacology of the cough reflex”.
2004 Invited speaker at the international symposium 19th Martin Days of Respiration in Martin, Slovakia, presented “Spatiotemporal determinants of the cough motor pattern”.
2002 Invited speaker at the symposium Cough: Recent Advances in Understanding at the 4th International Congress of Pathophysiology in Budapest, Hungary, presented "Regulation of the cough reflex: lessons from the actions of antitussive drugs"
2002 Invited speaker and co-organizer at the symposium Cough: Basic Mechanisms and Therapeutic Implications in Kenilworth, NJ, presented "Neurogenesis of cough: antitussive drugs reveal the presence of a hidden regulatory element"
2001 C.E Cornelius Young Investigator Award, Univ. of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine

Research Interests:

Cough is the most common reason why sick patients visit physicians in the US. This defensive reflex is the most common manifestation of tobacco- and non-tobacco-related pulmonary diseases. Furthermore, cough suppressant (also called antitussive) drugs are among the most commonly prescribed in the world. Significant gaps exist in our understanding of how cough is produced and how this defensive reflex is inhibited by antitussive drugs. The long-range goal of research in our laboratory is to delineate the how the nervous system produces and regulates cough. We use antitussive drugs as tools to determine how the cough system is controlled. As such, our work also will expand our knowledge of the mechanisms by which these drugs inhibit cough. Our current approach incorporates the use of multiple extracellular electrode array technology to investigate the behavior of spontaneously active and recruited neurons in the brainstem during cough. Determination of the identity and functional relationships between these neurons will allow modeling of the configuration of the brainstem cough network. Perturbation of the behavior of these neurons with antitussive drugs will allow us to identify the mechanism by which cough suppressants act to inhibit this behavior.

Selected Publications:

For Publications Extracted From Medline Click HERE

Bolser, DC, Davenport, PW. Expiratory motor controlduring the cough reflex. Eur Respir Rev, 12:243-248, 2002 (invited review).

Davenport, PW, Sapienza, CM, and Bolser, DC. Psychophysical assessment of the urge-to-cough. Eur Respir Rev, 12:249-253, 2002 (invited manuscript).

Golder, FJ, fuller, DD, Davenport, PW, Johnson, RD, Reier,PJ, and Bolser, DC. Respiratory motor recovery after unilateral cervical spinal cord injury: Eliminating crossed phrenic activity decreases tidal volume and increases contralateral respiratory motor output. J Neurosci, 23:2494-2501, 2003.

Bolser, DC, Davenport, PW, Golder, FJ, Baekey, DM, Morris,KF, Lindsey, BG, and Shannon, R. Neurogenesis of cough. Cough: Causes, Mechanisms and Therapy. Eds. H Boushey, F Chung, and JG Widdicombe. pp173-180, 2003.

Golder, FJ, Fuller, DD, Davenport, PW, Johnson, RD, Reier, PJ, and Bolser, DC. Respiratory motor recovery after unilateral cervical spinal cord injury: Eliminating crossed phrenic activity decreases tidal volume and increases contralateral respiratory motor output. J Neurosci, 23:2494-2501, 2003.

Golder, FJ, Davenport, PW, Johnson, RD, Reier, PJ, Bolser, DC. Augmented breath phase volume and timing relationships in the anesthetized rat. Neurosci Lett. 373(2):89-93, 2005.

Bolser, DC. Experimental models and mechanisms of enhanced coughing. Pulm Pharmacol Ther. 7:383-8, 2004.